I am an unskilled Ubuntu user and almost each time I try to install something nontrivial I break something miserably. I am successfully using gcc 4.7 and 4.8 simultaneously using update-alternatives according to this answer. Now I would like to try out clang for my C++ development.

I am afraid that the complier is a critical part of the operating system and installing it is nontrivial. I am afraid that if install clang it will overwrite the C++ standard headers and libraries of gcc and/or break something else.

How can I safely install and use clang and gcc?

EDIT:

I do not have aptitude installed, so I tried:

sudo apt-get install clang-3.4

instead and everything looks fine. I tested gcc and it seems that I did not break it.